Valuable Lessons from Discovery 2000

Dear Discovery 2000 Participant:

Feedback during and after Discovery 2000 has been almost unanimously favorable, indeed enthusiastic. But not quite unanimously. Valuable lessons may lie in expressions that were not entirely favorable.

One journal offering said:

"NPS leads with money and arrogance. NPS is a closed, inward looking organization. NPS's relations with partners are dominated by NPS's needs and goals. NPS does not value partner programs. NPS tolerates partner programs, but shows little interest in fostering or strengthening the programs. NPS does not incorporate services, programs and activities carried out by partners as part of their mission or thinking."

Perhaps you will find this disappointing, annoying, or even insulting, but Director Stanton opened Discovery 2000 as a "safe place for dangerous truths." If you are put off by this journal offering, I ask that you put it aside until you can read it as a well-intended statement, but do return to it and think deeply about it. Personally, I can think of situations at one time or another that would validate each of the six statements.

Another person wrote afterward that although Discovery 2000 had been uplifting and inspiring it had kind of an ongoing "feel-good" flavor. The writer said an important opportunity had been missed because none of the plenary sessions drew upon outside organizations who are known to have critical views of where the Park Service is today and whether it is well-equipped for the 21st century. The paragraphs below encompass most of my response.

The goal of Discovery 2000 was to look very far into the future -- farther than NPS and many of its colleagues normally look. The hope was that if we could focus on genuine "vision" we might get beyond the shorter-term obstacles (many important and many petty) that keep us from making progress on the kinds of present shortcomings about which the writer was concerned. I believe that concentration on immediate concerns is one of the reasons vision has atrophied both within NPS and among partner organizations.

In due course I hope NPS and its partners will more precisely define their long-range vision or visions -- perhaps based on the Director's closing remarks. Then we should critically assess our current reality (where we are today, and whether we are well equipped for the 21st century). The difference between vision and current reality is what Peter Senge calls "creative tension," and with consistent attention from leaders it pulls the present reality upward and forward toward the vision. But vision has to come first, and that was what we tried to generate (not to define) in Discovery 2000.

I too found the plenary sessions uplifting and inspiring, but certainly not "feel-good" in nature. Franklin told us we face wrenching changes in American culture that will require drastically different attitudes and actions of the NPS and its partners. Wilson and Raven told us the very survival of the human species is in question, and that because NPS and its partners have an extraordinary inherent capability to do something about it we therefore have an absolute obligation to do so. That certainly does not mean we can keep doing the same old things the same old ways. Senge very courteously told us we are still somewhat impeded by some very outmoded, mistaken, and harmful concepts about leadership -- in, of, and by the NPS -- and that we must make drastic improvements if we are to have any hope of doing what Franklin, Wilson, and Raven advocated. These messages were indeed delivered in gentle and encouraging, even flattering, terms, but I honestly found them rather terrifying and anything but "feel-good." The uplifting part was a sense that there is still time for NPS and its partners to succeed IF we get very serious about it RIGHT NOW!

To the greatest degree possible we tried to make Discovery 2000 a dialogue-based and participatory conference, in which NPS employees of all levels and partners and critics were all equal. If partners or critics or others who had things to say remained silent, especially in the smaller breakouts, THAT would have been the REAL missed opportunity.

But we all learn as we go. The chances are that most NPS people agree with much of what critics among our partners have to say. One of the things we learned from Discovery 2000 is how to do better in future participatory conferences -- both in the ways we plan and execute them, and the ways we as individuals participate in them. Planners of the next conference have an obligation to heed those lessons.

I thought the thing that "felt best" about Discovery 2000 was its absolute openness to any point of view, and in that spirit other points of view remain welcome. Perfection would be pretty dull, as it allows neither learning nor improvement.

Jerry Rogers
Discovery 2000 Conference Chair
October 27, 2000